Heartbreak, heroin and horse tranquilizers: How addiction killed 51 in Jackson County

JACKSON, MI -- A talented mixed martial artist and coach with a spiraling dependency on pain pills. A woman whose repeated stints in jail or rehab never kept her sober long enough to mother her children.

A boyfriend and girlfriend both killed by carfentanil, the deadly large animal tranquilizer distributed as heroin.

The four were among 51 people who died of drug abuse in Jackson County in 2016, according to a Citizen Patriot/MLive analysis of death certificates and autopsy reports.

All but five of the deaths were opioid-related. There were signs of heroin in 37 - or 72 percent - of the cases, police and medical examiner reports show. In only 19 of the deaths, however, did laboratory testing reveal the quickly metabolized positive marker for heroin, 6-monoacetylorphine.

The Citizen Patriot/MLive analysis shows those who died were overwhelmingly white. All but 13 were male. Many were tradesmen. Eleven had gone to college. Their average age was 40.